Baseball Meets Le Moyne to Start NE-10 Championship Weekend Thursday
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Adult - $6
Child / Senior - $4
NE-10 Student - $1
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. – On the heels of an upset over top-seeded Franklin Pierce in the Northeast-10 Championship First Round, the Merrimack baseball team begins its quest for a fourth conference tournament title when it battles Le Moyne as part of the four-team double-elimination championship weekend on Thursday (May 9) at Southern Connecticut State starting at 12 p.m.
Picked to finish seventh in the Northeast Division prior to the start of the season, the Warriors (27-17) added to what has become one of the best campaigns in recent memory with a 4-1 victory over the Ravens in the first round of the NE-10 Championships. For their efforts, Merrimack will take on the defending champion Dolphins (24-22) on Thursday, who came from behind to stun second-seeded Pace in the tournament's opening round on Tuesday afternoon.
With four teams remaining in the NE-10 Championships, the tournament format switches to double-elimination Thursday. The winner of Merrimack and Le Moyne's showdown will earn the right to face the winner of Bentley-New Haven on Friday. The losers of Thursdays' tilts will play in an elimination game Friday morning to trim the field down to three. Then, the field will be reduced to two with one more elimination game Friday afternoon, setting up Saturday's Championship Finals.
Friday and Saturday's games will be played at the University of New Haven; the lone game scheduled to be played at Southern Connecticut is Merrimack and Le Moyne's on Thursday.
Bentley enters the Championship Weekend by means of a come-from-behind, ninth-inning rally to stun third-seeded and 2012 College World Series participant Southern New Hampshire, 3-2, on Tuesday in Waltham, Mass. Down in the Southwest Division, New Haven cruised to a 5-0 win over fourth-seeded Adelphi to set up the cross-divisional matchup between the two schools.
Merrimack has not faced either of the remaining Southwest Division schools this season but did finish 5-3 in cross-division matchups this year, excluding a 9-1 defeat to Southern Connecticut in Florida back in mid-March. The Warriors swept weekend series against Assumption and Pace and split a doubleheader with AIC while also dropping a two-game set against Adelphi. The Warriors also took 2-of-3 against Bentley this spring.
On Tuesday, junior Alek Morency (Nashua, N.H.) powered the Warriors with a complete-game gem to quiet Franklin Pierce. The right-hander went the distance while yielding one unearned run on five hits and striking out six over all nine innings, while junior Eddie Newton (North Billerica, Mass.) highlighted the Warriors' offense with a solo home run midway through the contest. Tuesday's victory at Franklin Pierce marked the third win in four attempts over the Ravens in 2013; before this season, Merrimack had never beaten Franklin Pierce more than once in a single season.
Le Moyne, meanwhile, tacked on three runs in the top of the seventh and two more in the top of the eighth to erase a two-run deficit and oust second-seeded Pace with a 7-4 victory in Pleasantville, N.Y., on Tuesday. Ryan Davis picked up the win for the Dolphins while Brian Stinson and Vincent Redmond added a pair of doubles for the visitors.
The 2012 NE-10 Champions, Le Moyne's offense is highlighted by Pat Wiese, whose .345 average and 57 hits are tops on the squad. After Davis, Casey Cannon and Kevin Carroll have started 10 and 11 games, respectively, on the hill. The former owns a 3.41 ERA and has logged 71 1/3 innings of work, while the latter has averaged 10.32 strikeouts per game.
Schedule of Events
Thursday, May 9
Game 5: New Haven vs. Bentley – 12 p.m. (played at New Haven)
Game 6: Le Moyne vs. Merrimack – 12 p.m. (played at Southern Connecticut State)
Friday, May 10 (at New Haven)
Game 7: Game 5 loser vs. Game 6 loser – 10 a.m.
Game 8: Game 5 winner vs. Game 5 winner – 12:30 p.m.
Game 9: Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 loser – 3 p.m.
Saturday, May 11 (at New Haven)
Game 10: Game 9 winner vs. Game 8 winner – 11 a.m.
Game 11 (If necessary) – 30 minutes following completion of Game 10
* Schedule is subject to change; all games will be played at the posted start time or 35 minutes after the game before, whichever is later
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